THE REPRODUCTION OF CONTEMPORARY RACIAL INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES

The evolution of the social constructs, historical contexts of race and systemic racism have resulted in copious racial disparities across the entirety of institutions that currently exist today in the United States. There are fallacious claims that our modern society provides an equal opportunity regardless of race. This is disproven by the racial ideologies formulated during the enslavement of African Americans which became deeply embedded in our contemporary system. Despite the abolishment of slavery and forced segregation, the long-term effects of the inhumane acts white people have committed such as decolonization, enslavement, exploitation, segregation and genocide, have not only led to the oppression of racial minorities, but ultimately led to racial minorities being perceived as targets in America. Systemic racism exists on a spectrum across all levels of the system: racial ideologies, the media’s portrayal of race, income inequality, residential segregation and institutional racism in the criminal justice system. The combination of these humanitarian injustices ultimately works together to reproduce racial inequality in the United States.

RACIAL IDEOLOGIES

The common mindset found in the white population manifests deep-rooted racial prejudice due to the existence of racial ideologies that were created centuries ago. Golash-Boza (2018) describes racial ideology as the series of ideas which divide people based on their race and serves the interests of the superior group. Racial ideologies continue to remain in our contemporary society because of the social institutions that preserve them. The beliefs, attitudes and values individuals hold based on underlying racial ideologies shape their behavior in their everyday lives. Whether it is biological racism which argues that whites are genetically superior or color-blind racism which completely disregards and marginalizes racial minorities’ needs, white people will adopt a way of thinking that is not only in their favor but establishes their superiority (Golash-Boza 2018). In order to unravel the systemic racism ingrained in our social systems, educating the racially biased mindset takes precedence over any other consideration.

Social institutions continue to collectively reproduce systemic racism with white supremacy and white privilege which serve as the foundation of our system. White privilege is invisible to the majority of the white population. W.E.B. DuBois explains the psychological “wage of whiteness” that exists in the labor force because regardless of low class or poverty, white workers believed they were still superior due to their race (Golash-Boza 2018). White people use “whiteness” to reassure their superiority in society. Sociologists further expand their studies on racial ideology by assessing the theoretical concepts of white supremacy and systemic racism and how they function in our society. According to Johnson (2013), in order for society to function, the participation of the people is required; therefore the system depends on two things: how the system works and how people participate. This theoretical perspective of our system provides an explanation for the reproduction of racism through our institutions. While individual racism marginalizes racial minorities, individual racism alone does not uphold the strong barrier that protects white superiority; institutional racism holds the power.

RACIST STEREOTYPES IN THE MEDIA

Another issue that reproduces racial inequality in the U.S. is the media’s portrayal of race and use of racist stereotypes in their publications. The media constantly reinforces racial stereotypes which influences the way society thinks and justifies their preexisting notions of racial stereotypes. Patricia Hill Collins argues that controlling images, which are depictions of black people in the media, shape society’s modern-day perspective of African Americans (Golash-Boza 2018). Collins’s framework of controlling images provides an explanation for the stereotypes of black women as aggressive or rude and black men as athletes or thugs. The predicament with eliminating controlling images is that the continuous reinforcement of the media. Analogous to Collin’s literature, Rajgopal (2010) explains the contemporary stereotypes that exist in the media such as the portrayal of Arabs as terrorists, Native Americans as savages, Latinos as gardeners, Asians as foreigners and Blacks as criminals (Golash-Boza 2018). The media and film industry are responsible for the justification of these stereotypes because the audience internalizes the stereotypes which further shapes their racially biased perspectives.

News reporters, journalists and film directors perpetually create narratives in favor of the white man. The media has the power to choose what they are reporting and how they report it. Frizzell, Lindsay and Duxbury (2018) examined the influence the media has on society’s portrayal of criminals and found that articles that the inclusion of the shooter’s mental illness was present in 33 percent of white shooter cases, 26 percent of Latino shooter cases and only 2 percent of Black shooter cases. The study further examines the details journalists used to describe these criminals and found in cases of a white shooter, the situation was commonly described as “out of character.” Positive images of white people and in certain cases, white criminals, is a clear representation of the function white privilege has in our society. The media has a responsibility to report unbiased, factual evidence of criminal activity to the public, but abuses its power by exercising white supremist ideology and marginalizing racial minorities in their publications.

INCOME AND JOB INEQUALITY

Furthermore, the racial disparity that exists in the labor market rationalizes the idea that hard work in the United States does not inherently produce success. Golash-Boza (2018) explains that Black and Latino families in the U.S. own five cents of wealth for each dollar white families own. The income polarity due to racial differences reflects the significance of intergenerational wealth which favors the white family. One study shows the median Black two-parent family and Latino two-parent family have around $15k in wealth while the median single-parent white family has $35k and the two-parent white family has $160k in wealth (Florido 2017). The disparity in median incomes based on race is a strong reflection of the historical context associated with housing policies that favors white families. Florido (2017) further elaborates on the family structure and racial inequity dynamic by explaining that racial inequity remains in our society because of advantageous intergenerational wealth and white privilege. The prevalence of economic success and elevated income in white families derives from the white dominance embedded in the American system.

Regardless of credentials for a job, race continues to serve as an obstacle for racial minorities in America. When applying to jobs, it is common for racial minorities to use the influential effect of “whitening” their resumes to increase the likeliness of receiving a job offer. According to Gerdeman (2017), 10 percent of Black candidates and 11.5 percent of Asian candidates heard back from a job when including their racial and ethnic details on their resume in comparison to the 25 percent of Black candidates and 21 percent of Asian candidates that heard back when using a whitened resume. The chances of being hired rise significantly when candidates leave out their race which is a clear representation of how the U.S. occupational field reproduces racial inequality. The act of whitening resumes leads to individuals creating false identities and disregarding their culture in an attempt to be perceived as “whiter” than their true racial identity. Systemic racism in the American labor market and the normalization of whiteness collectively work together to reproduce racial inequality.

RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION

Another factor that reproduces racial inequality in the U.S. is the residential segregation that exists across the nation today. Golash-Boza (2018) explains that the three primary factors responsible for contemporary residential segregation is discrimination practiced by whites, federal housing programs to benefit whites and white-advantageous practices committed by the real estate industry. In our society, a black family and a white family can be in the same financial position when looking to buy a house, but the black family is at a higher risk for being denied. The government, real estate agents and homeowners use various strategies to reproduce racism and create residential segregation throughout communities. According to the Federal Housing Administration Manual that existed in the 1930s, the presence of even one black family in a predominantly white community could decrease the value of property in that suburban area (California Newsreel 2013). The historical context of residential segregation is vital to understanding the racial disparity in communities today.

In addition to the emergence of the Federal Housing Administration was the New Deal which further contributed to residential segregation across the United States. The National Housing Act of the New Deal claimed its purpose was to provide the country with economic relief, but in reality the programs and policies implemented in the 1930s divided communities and redlined areas based on income and race (NPR 2018). Public housing programs were implemented across the country to segregate communities based on race. The Federal Housing Administration eventually coincided with the police force in an attempt to enforce residential segregation. As late as the 1950s, the police used state-sanctioned violence against Black Americans who attempted to segregate into white communities (Lopez 2019). Despite the absence of modern-day segregation laws, the real estate industry and government continue to work together to reproduce racial inequality and establish residential segregation in communities.

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM IN THE CRIMAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Moreover, the institutional racism that exists in the criminal justice system continues to reproduce racial inequality in the United States. Similar to the significance of the historical context in modern residential segregation, the history of the criminal justice system and its initial purpose provides an explanation for the way it functions in society. The subsystem of the criminal justice system that is widely responsible for the reproduction of racial injustice is the police force. In the United States, the Black and Latino community are targeted as they are more likely to be penalized at every level of the system: accusations, arrests, convictions, sentences and death penalties (Golash-Boza 2018). The police force is an extremely powerful institution that abuses its power to not only control the black population, but place them behind bars. The first police force was created to control enslaved black people and over the centuries, the police was responsible for terrorizing, policing and surveilling the black population (Throughline 2020). The U.S. criminal justice system is rooted on white supremacy and white dominance which is exercised through the practices of the police today.

Regardless of the abolishment of the police’s initial purpose to control black people, the police continues to racially profile and target lower class, urbanized, predominantly Black neighborhoods. Beer’s (2015) findings show that from 2015 to 2019, blacks made up 12% of the population, however they represented 26% of murders by the police. This data reflects the power the police has to target racial minorities and execute them without repercussions. In another investigation, the Department of Justice (2014) examined the activity of the Newark Police Department and found that approximately 65% of pedestrian stops by the police had no valid legal reasoning behind the stop. While the police claims they do not use racial profiling, the data is a transparent reflection of the racial targeting the police commits. Following the racial profiling and targeting of racial minorities, the police arrest countless of racial minorities whose cases eventually get dismissed due to the lack of evidence of any crime. From 1970 to the late 1990s, the United States had over two million inmates incarcerated in the prison system, which was ten times more the number of inmates incarcerated prior to 1970 (Golash-Boza 2018). The police attempts to control Black Americans through mass incarceration. The racial disparity that exists in the American prison system is a representation of the institutional racism that is reproduced by the practices of the police force.

ULTIMATELY...

The collaboration of the social institutions that work collectively to reinforce white supremacy fuels the operation of systemic racism in our contemporary society. Racial ideologies remain embedded in the mindset of the white population because the constant reinforcement of white privilege justifies their superiority. While the media and film industry are generally responsible for conveying factual evidence, their use of racial stereotypes and portrayal of criminals based on race contributes to the marginalization of racial minorities. Moreover, the unequal opportunity of hiring processes which reveals that the inclusion of race can decrease the individual’s chance of receiving a job offer further exercises the reproduction of racism. The combination of the government and real estate industry’s use of practices to steer and divide communities based on race is also a prominent factor of contemporary racial injustice. Lastly, the institutional racism in the criminal justice system which involves the racial profiling and mass incarceration of African Americans justifies the racial inequality that exists across the country. The joined forces of these social institutions and continual reinforcement of racially unjust practices can be held accountable for the reproduction of racial inequality in the United States.

References

Beer, Todd. 2018. “Police Killing of Blacks: Do Black Lives Matter?” https://thesocietypages.org/toolbox/police-killing-of-blacks/

Department of Justice. 2014. “Investigation of the Newark Police Department.”

California Newsreel. 2013. “Race the Power of an Illusion: How the Race Gap Was Created.” https://vimeo.com/133506632

Florido, Adrian. 2017. “Black, Latino Two-Parent Families Have Half the Wealth of White Single Parents.” NPR.

Frizzell, Laura, Sade Lindsay, and Scott Duxbury. 2018. “Race Of Mass Shooters Influences How The Media Cover Their Crimes, New Study Shows.” The Conversation.

Gerdeman, Dina. 2017. “Minorities Who ‘Whiten’ Job Resumes Get More Interviews.” Harvard Business School.

Golash-Boza, Tanya. 2018. “Race and Racisms: A Critical Approach.” Oxford University Press.

Johnson, Allan G. 2013. “Aren’t Systems Just People?”

NPR. 2018. “Why Cities Are Still So Segregated.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5FBJyqfoLM

Throughline. 2020. “American Policing.”NPR.

Special thanks to Dr. Jabou McCoy and Meg Driscoll.